Emily St John Mandel is a powerhouse of a writer. Like many, I’ve been a fan for the long haul, devouring each of her books as soon as they release. Her writing is unlike any other: utterly original, boundary-pushing, and full of sharp observations. The creativity in her novels is boundless, and I’m always delighted to spend time in her worlds—even the dystopian ones.
I met Mandel over Zoom to talk about her writing life ahead of the release of Exit Party. She was preparing for publication week, which she described as, no exaggeration, “a new city every 24 hours.” We talked about the process of seeing her work adapted for the screen, her love of fashion and dark chocolate, and a shared preference for writing by the window. When I asked her thoughts on realism vs. surrealism, longtime readers of her work will find it no surprise that she expressed feeling like the boundary between the two is becoming harder and harder to distinguish.
I was thrilled to have the chance to speak to Mandel about her process—from finding that first inkling of an idea to knowing where the story should end—for Electric Lit’s 23 Questions.
— Katie Henken Robinson
Deputy Editor
1. What book should everyone read growing up?
Emily St John Mandel: I think that different kids need to read different stories and I wouldn’t want to be prescriptive on that.
2. How do you start from scratch?
ESJM: I find that it’s not that hard to come up with an idea. What’s hard is the execution. So I just dive right in. I have that idea, and then I’ll just start writing and see what happens.
3. Hardcover, paperback, or e-reader?
ESJM: Hardcover if I’m home, paperback if I’m traveling.
4. If you were a novel, what novel would you be?
ESJM: I would actually be Exit Party. There’s a lot of myself in that book.
- EL: Do you think that’s the most “yourself in a book” of the ones you’ve written?
5. Describe your ideal writing day.
ESJM: Go for a run in the park by my place and then drink more coffee and then just write all day until dinner time, with a break for lunch.
6. Typing or longhand?
ESJM: Both. I like to switch back and forth.
7. What’s a piece of writing advice you never want to hear again?
ESJM: Write what you know—I just find that so limiting, you know? We all have this one life, but there are all these other lives you could imagine.
8. What is the piece of writing advice you think everyone needs to hear?
ESJM: Be at peace with writing a terrible first draft. I think of the first draft as literally just the raw material in which I’m going to find the novel, not the novel itself.
9. Realism or surrealism?
ESJM: It’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference, honestly. Our current world feels so surreal to me that I don’t know if I can answer that.
10. Favorite and least favorite adaptation of a book.
ESJM: Okay, so my favorite is Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. I think that’s an incredible film. The problem with my least favorite is that I actually have a second career as a screenwriter. So I feel like you’d have to waterboard me to get me to admit what my least favorite adaptation is, because I probably know the people involved in it.
- EL: What’s a surprising thing that you’ve learned from being adapted?
- ESJM: What surprised me the most is realizing that you have to be willing to blow up your novel to make it an effective TV series or film. And the second surprise is that I love that. It turns out it’s really fun to blow up a story into its component parts and then figure out a new way to put it back together.
- EL: I always say that the Station Eleven adaptation is my favorite adaptation because of how it does exactly that. It’s not the book, but it retains its core and still gets at that same emotional feel.
- ESJM: Totally, yeah. I feel like they changed literally every single plot point, but somehow remain true to the spirit of the book. That’s a pretty impressive feat.
11. How did you meet your agent?
ESJM: Through my first agent. I’m on my second agent. My first agent signed me when she was in her mid-80s. And then after a few years, she was ready to retire and she introduced me to my second agents.
- EL: How did you meet your first agent?
- ESJM: Slush pile. She found me in her slush pile.
12. Best advice for pushing through writer’s block.
ESJM: I don’t know that I believe writer’s block exists, but I definitely have moments where I’m not sure what to do next. And I find the cure for that is to jump to a completely different point in the narrative, or possibly a different point of view, and just start writing from there, see what happens, and then figure out how it all goes together later.
13. What is your relationship to being edited?
ESJM: I welcome it. It makes my books much better. My personal experience has been that editors excel at pointing out problems. And I almost always disagree with their proposed solutions. But having someone who’s very good at recognizing the problems in a book is absolutely invaluable.
14. Write every day or write when inspired?
ESJM: Every day when I can. There are real moments of inspiration, but also it’s literally how I pay my rent. So that forces a kind of unglamorous approach to the process.
15. What other art forms and literary genres inspire you?
ESJM: Music and painting inspire me a lot. And I feel like I write in all of my favorite literary genres.
16. Who is the writer who made you want to write?
ESJM: Michael Ondaatje.
17. How do you know when you’ve reached the end?
ESJM: When I can’t find anything else to fix. You start editing and at first the problems are enormous. And then with every revision, the problems just get smaller and smaller and smaller. And when I find myself moving commas around, that’s when I know it’s time to hand it off to somebody else.
18. Writing with music or in silence?
ESJM: Oh, white noise. I like listening to a white noise loop of the ocean while I’m writing.
19. Describe your writing space.
ESJM: I share an office with my wife, which is fine because I get the side of the office by the window, so I’m very happy. It’s a very pleasant room. I write at a standing desk. There’s a view of the East River. I like it. I should say, [my wife] is a photographer, so she actually needs darkness for editing the photos. I didn’t just like, take the window.
20. How do you keep your favorite writers close to you?
ESJM: I have a lot of books in the main living area of my apartment, so when you walk in, you kind of walk into the book area. Which, you know, it’s New York City, so that’s also the kitchen and also kind of the living room. But it means that my books are always close by.
21. What is the last indie bookstore you went to?
ESJM: The Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid. We were up in the Adirondacks hiking and took a bookstore break. I bought a short story collection called My Dear You by Rachel Kong.
22. What is an activity when you need to take a writing break?
ESJM: Honestly, this is so boring, but decluttering. I’m always trying to get rid of stuff to make my space feel less crazy.
23. What does evolving as a writer mean to you?
ESJM: It means constantly working at the very outer limit of my abilities on each new book.
